Nielsen makes four changes to how it measures local TV in the US

Nielsen has made four changes to the way it measures local television in the United States. Nielsen is the company whose audience figures broadcasters and advertisers use to set prices. The changes were timed to land just before the 2026-27 US broadcast season. Three of them started on August 31. The fourth is an update to the estimate of how many Spanish-speaking homes there are, and it follows on September 26.

The main change is called the One Minute Qualifier. Until now a household had to stay with a station for five minutes inside a quarter of an hour before that quarter hour counted. The limit now drops to one minute. Nielsen says this brings in upwards of 24% of viewing moments that used to go unreported. Short visits during live sport, during news, and during evenings of channel-hopping will now count.

The second change updates the Household Demographic Assignment Model, which Nielsen uses for both local and national measurement. The aim is to remove bias in how viewing is split between younger and older households. The third change feeds data from Nielsen’s wearable Portable People Meters into the job of working out who is watching, in areas measured with set meters and code readers. That should show more clearly when several people watch together, especially during big live events. The Spanish-language update mixes American Community Survey data with Nielsen’s own National Hispanic Television Survey, so that more homes sit behind the language figures.

The one-minute rule replaces five minutes for news and sport

Local television is where the one-minute rule counts most. Station owners have argued for years that the five-minute rule was unfair to news blocks and to the build-up before sport, where viewers dip in and out. A one-minute rule should raise the reported audience for those slots. Buyers will need to reset what they treat as normal before comparing this autumn’s figures with last year’s. Nielsen has already brought in a one-minute rule for radio, where broadcasters reported clear rises in the figures.

The changes come alongside a separate set of seven national updates that Nielsen announced for the new season, as reported by TVNewsCheck. Together they are the biggest single-season reset of Nielsen’s TV panels in several years. Comscore, VideoAmp and iSpot are meanwhile still trying to win local and national buyers over to their own figures.

Agencies watch September to see if the recovered 24% lifts ratings

Nielsen said in its release that the package should give more accurate figures to buyers and sellers alike. It has not published estimates of the effect market by market. Agencies will watch the first weeks of September to see how much of the recovered 24% turns into higher average audiences, and whether the update to the demographic model moves share between stations with older and younger viewers. Any real change in local audience levels will feed straight into price talks for the fourth quarter.